Analysis on a Counter-Current Flow Hemodialyzer

Abstract

The closed form solution to the conjugated boundary value problem posed by a counter current hemodialyzer facilitates the estimation of the overall mass transfer coefficient. Comparison of the proposed model results with published experimental data shows good agreement for Urea and Creatinine clearances over a published range of blood and dialyzate flow rates. This model predicts clearances with a maximum error of less than 4% for both Urea and Creatinine when blood flow is 75% of the dialyzate flow. However, when both blood and dialyzate flows are identical the model over predicts the experimental data by 1.47% in the case of Urea and 4.75 for Creatinine flows of 300 ml/min. Although the concentration profile is an infinite series involving confluent hypergeometric functions, 2 terms of the series were sufficient (Mathematica notebook program) to produce these results. Overall mass transfer coefficients can now be deduced from the Sherwood numbers and provide possible improvement over currently used area coefficients.